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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25826953">betty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/purewaterlily/pseuds/purewaterlily'>purewaterlily</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Taylor Swift (Musician), betty - Taylor Swift (Song), cardigan - Taylor Swift (Song), folklore - Taylor Swift (Album)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Ex Sex, F/F, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Lesbian Sex, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Song: betty (Taylor Swift), Song: cardigan (Taylor Swift), james is a girl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:41:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,876</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25826953</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/purewaterlily/pseuds/purewaterlily</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve years later, James came back to her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>betty/james</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>betty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Goddammit Tswift, look what you made me do.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An attractive profile greeted Betty at the end of the line to the Sunday matinee. </p><p>Sharp, handsome cheekbones. Clean undercut with sweeping bangs. Narrow, mature eyes intensified by gorgeous, knife-edged brows.</p><p>It was a look so infuriatingly good, it should be made illegal. It should be public indecency to be showing that off in broad daylight.</p><p>Betty melted softly. It was kind of love at first sight. </p><p>Then she caught what the person was wearing. </p><p>Spencer’s chest hit her back.</p><p>“Betty?”</p><p>The person in line immediately looked up from her phone, eyes landing on Betty. And in the split second after, their expressions must have matched.</p><p>Without intervention, who knew how long they would have stared at each other in petrified silence. Who knew how long Betty would have stared into those eyes, the colors of which she had once counted to infinity and back. </p><p>Spencer’s presence reminded them that the world wasn’t under nuclear meltdown. Yet.</p><p>“Someone you know, Betty?”</p><p>James’s gaze jumped up to Spencer, to the hand on Betty’s upper arm, and Betty could see the exact moment her eyes glazed over, the questions on her lips taken back and sealed tight. Mindlessly, James pulled the oversized cardigan over herself tighter, shrinking a step back when they stepped forward. She didn't run, and to the outsider, looked to be making room.</p><p>Betty remembered Spencer was still waiting for an answer. James was too.</p><p>"Ah, right, Spencer, this is James. She…" Betty waited for a correction. There was none. She floundered. "She’s from my hometown," Betty said helplessly.</p><p>The flash of emotion came down like a lightning strike. James clutched the cardigan harder.</p><p>But again, no correction. Just a thin smile and…</p><p>"Hey."</p><p>… a tone so casual, that whatever history Betty hadn't already torn from her notebook, James would help pull off its spiral binding.</p><p>The transformation was so fast, Betty felt borderline gaslit. Even if she was the one who struck the match, and James was only respectfully burning the evidence.</p><p>Nice to meet you, where you been? Oh been there too a few times. How's life, how's your family? Cool, cool.</p><p>Of course their seats were adjacent. </p><p>As they pretended to be two strangers in the dark, pretended to not feel the weight of each other’s gravity, Betty wondered what powers she had offended, what stars she had crossed, for fate to send her such a loud fuck you.</p><p>Worse, they had seen this film before. </p><p>They fell for the same advertisement as the first time, when they had snuck in for the midnight premiere some decade and a half ago, lured by the promise of neo-noir sapphic vampires.</p><p>They hadn’t remembered how bad it was, too distracted by smoked kisses and treacherous hands.</p><p>Now all they had was this shitty film to distract themselves from each other.</p><p>But as the film went on, and they remained the only two in the audience able to keep their gazes upfront, not unwillingly, Betty realized the true miracle was how they had not reunited earlier. </p><p>How it took seven different cities and three thousand miles to keep them apart, the only thing keeping them apart, because how many dumbasses in the world would actually say yes to that advertisement—say yes <em> twice </em>—or end up wheezing in their seats. </p><p>“You should come to our party.”</p><p>James paused before the exit. </p><p>“It’s Betty’s birthday tomorrow,” Spencer continued blissfully.</p><p>As if James didn’t already know that.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Betty didn’t know why she was holding the flambé. She was holding it for the sake of holding something. She wanted to scream.</p><p>“Babe, hey babe. Love.”</p><p>Betty whipped around to see Spencer leaning on the marble countertop of their kitchen bar. He had his stupid innocent smile, as if he weren’t the perpetrator of all of Betty’s current turmoil.</p><p>“Just wanted to tell you, you look fucking ravishing,” he said, his old accent coming out on the last drawl.</p><p>Typically Betty took his compliments with dignity, with enthusiasm, with a gracious return of the favor as slick as a sleight of hand. Now all she wanted was to flambé his head and change outfits for the eighth time.</p><p>She didn’t buy her dress for this. Her dress didn’t deserve this, waiting to impress some asshole who might not even show.</p><p>James showed.</p><p>James showed up neither noticeably early nor late, in a plain tank top and jeans, toned down of all colors and style except for the tattoos down her left arm, which she probably would have covered too if their building’s heat wasn’t set to accommodate all the women in their dresses.</p><p>While Betty had gone for maximum reaction, James must have chosen the least provocative, least offensive items in her wardrobe, as if social grace was suddenly a thing she cared for, as if the opinions of Betty’s friends somehow mattered now. </p><p>If so, it worked. She blended in fine, easily mistaken for another bicurious neoliberal hitting up her first joint and trying on some edgy looks.</p><p>Her present was...</p><p>Betty wasn’t hoping for a mixtape or some cool indie record. She wasn’t expecting a boombox over the shoulder screaming <em> you belong with me</em>. </p><p>But a motherfucking bottle of <em> rosé</em>?</p><p>She closed the bag, not having been this insulted since Scott Wheeler booed her off the third grade talent show.</p><p>The party went nothing as she envisioned.</p><p>No<em> can we talk</em>?</p><p>No yelling, no drama.</p><p>No private moment in the building stairwell that ended with her back to the wall and her dress half-zipped.</p><p>Betty spent her time in the kitchen with a glass of wine that wasn’t nearly strong enough, half-listening to Spencer and Kate’s far too enthusiastic conversation on dog-surfing and aerial drone laws.  </p><p>And James… James was almost unrecognizable in how well-behaved she was, smiling in greeting, making eye contact, speaking with a shine of cleverness, enough to capture and delight but not frighten away. She had found a comfortable compromise between the corner and center, passing beers and hors d'oeuvres with the game circle, whose occasional bursts of cheer were unmistakable in the lounge.</p><p>Her tank top was a bit too thin. It was soft and loose on James’s body, exposing the side of her torso whenever she lifted her arms for a card. The way the fabric rested betrayed the flat slopes of her chest and stomach, every definition and pull of muscle.    </p><p>Ink trailed from her back, over her deltoid, all the way down to tendrils at her wrist, yet Betty couldn’t understand any of it. She didn’t know the language.</p><p>She used to.</p><p>She used to be able to read James effortlessly. Now, she didn’t know what to make of her appearance, of each motion and gesture. She heard nothing but silence. </p><p>They didn’t interact until the last moments of the night, when the crowd thinned and James stayed to help with cleanup. Even then, her gaze on Betty was fleeting at best, all conversation routed through the group.  </p><p>Reserved. Polite.</p><p>It’s great seeing you again. </p><p>Thank you for the invite.</p><p>Happy Birthday, Betty.</p><p>James didn’t even attempt to go for a shoulder pat or arm bump, both hands pocketed. </p><p>The only hint of something, anything, was the look she gave at the door, how her eyes found Betty just a split second too fast, lingered just a split second too long, before she turned and disappeared.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Betty hated her new phone. It wasn’t the right size for her pocket. It wasn’t the right size for her palm. Unused to the feel, she kept fiddling with it.</p><p>Worse, it now automatically unlocked every time she unintentionally picked it up, leaving her to stare at her open screen, empty of apps, empty of notifications. Silent and unchanging.</p><p>She caved.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Betty [4:14 PM]: Hey James! Thanks again for coming to our party, we really enjoyed that rosé. </p>
  <p>Betty [4:15 PM]: It’s been a long time. Let me know if you ever want to grab lunch. We should properly catch up :)</p>
</blockquote><p>There. Done. Hating herself, Betty slammed her phone down on the table.</p><p>She picked it up again.</p><p>Three minutes.</p><p>Ten minutes.</p><p>Thirty eight minutes.</p><p>Betty jumped at the buzz.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>James [4:55 PM]: np</p>
</blockquote><p>She waited.</p><p>She tapped the message then untapped it again, showing and hiding the timestamp.</p><p>She continued waiting, staring, reading the same two characters, every iteration more mocking than the last. Her hand shook.</p><p>Betty… was going to kill her.</p><p>Then came the three dots. They resolved fast.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>James [5:00 PM]: when are you free?</p>
</blockquote><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>They agreed to meet up on a Wednesday at a cafe near Betty’s work.</p><p>James was already there, still hot as fuck. </p><p>Maddeningly hot. </p><p>Heart-stoppingly hot. </p><p>Unlike at the party, James was no longer washed down, once again sharp with edges, with controversy, too aggressive for the feminine and too delicate for the masculine, an elegant optical illusion that flipped back and forth. When she looked up, Betty thought she caught something.</p><p>James broke eye contact first. </p><p>Now that it was just the two of them, it was no longer possible for James to hide. She wouldn’t be able to hide where she looked, the way she looked, each passing second reaffirming what Betty wanted to know. Even if her eyes hadn’t given it away, her voice certainly did, dry and subdued and unexpectedly soft. Hesitant starts and hopeful, tattering ends.</p><p>It would be easy, if Betty wanted to.</p><p>Betty didn’t know if she wanted to. </p><p>Except she did know.</p><p>In the end, they both settled for safe. Casual. And once a little more emboldened, teasing.</p><p>“Digging the corp vibe,” James said, leaning into her fist. Her free hand stirred the ice in her matcha latte. “One of these buildings yours?”</p><p>“By the tower, next street down. They pulled me in to be the new director of North America.”</p><p>James whistled. “Maybe I shouldn’t be keeping you then.”</p><p>“We’re fine. It’s just nonstop meetings. Should be thanking you for bailing me out,” Betty said, laughing lightly.</p><p>It was an excuse.</p><p>In actuality, Betty loved the meetings. She enjoyed speaking in them, enjoyed the power, enjoyed knowing she had earned that power, that the company desperately needed her, needed her competence, acknowledged it. She enjoyed the way the floor bowed, the way she formed and reformed the world to her discretion. </p><p>“And you?”</p><p>James caught a glimpse of the truth behind her words but didn’t pursue it. Chuckling, she hid behind fingers, ones still bare and unmarked by the past, a blank space open for anyone's name. </p><p>“Oh, well, nothing like that,” she said. </p><p>James confessed to having some tough years. Dropped out of university. Did a bunch of random gigs, before big tech grabbed a hold of her talents. Not her favorite thing in the world but the pay was ludicrous. So she served her time, then took her money and her dignity, and got the hell out.</p><p>“Working on some side projects now. Got my Patreon and everything.” James smirked. “Guess you could also call me a director. Different kind of director.”</p><p>“Ah.” </p><p>Betty debated asking.</p><p>James ended that quickly. In talking to Betty, all her guards had dropped. In talking to Betty, some semblance of the old James was back, eagerly seeking out her one companion and confidant, brimming with impatience to tell her, to show her, bursting through her front door and announcing<em>—</em></p><p>“Would you like to see?” </p><p>
  <em>—what I just made?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I made it for us!</em>
</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Only after James already pulled it up did there come a beat of hesitation. By then, it was too late. She held the phone across the table, then, dryly swallowing, leaned back and waited.</p><p>Betty gently held the phone with both hands. She felt like a child again, peering into a magic portal that spiraled with pixie dust.</p><p>The video wasn’t long, simply timeless.</p><p>When it ended, she had nothing to say. </p><p>She didn’t need to say anything. James had already seen her reaction. </p><p>James had been watching her the whole time, and now sat there wearing a stupid, drunken grin, buzzing with validation, burning with hope, her entire expression that of one lighted by fireflies, of someone falling in love for the very first time.</p><p>Only this time, Betty felt like the one falling off the skateboard.</p><p>Her gaze fell back down on the screen. </p><p>Fifty million views.</p><p>Did James ever think of Betty somewhere in that number? James made this for herself, but in the brief flashes between transitions, had there been moments made to them?</p><p>Betty handed James back her phone, smiling softly, happy to have been one of the many to have witnessed her.</p><p>They walked back to Betty’s workplace, skyscrapers of thoughts building in both their minds.</p><p>They passed the revolving doors, across the expansive floors and flowing water, through the security and to the elevators, polished and golden.</p><p>This was it.</p><p>James broke the silence.</p><p>“Hey Betty.”</p><p>Betty held her breath.</p><p>“Listen… I don’t know anyone in this city yet. Been trying to go out, meet people, all that.” James gave a strained smile, fingers shuffling through her short hair. “You know better than anyone that I can be a bit of an acquired taste.”</p><p>James asked if she remembered that offer, all those years ago, back in the garden.</p><p>“I remember,” Betty whispered.</p><p>James inhaled. “I want to take you up on it. If it’s still on the table.”</p><p>It took Betty a long moment to recover. </p><p>Her hand refound her grip on her badge. She squeezed.</p><p>Betty smiled. “I know a good ramen place.”</p><p>Betty watched the edge of James’s lips wrinkle, the flush of relief, the warm regard.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Growing up, Betty had the delight of watching James metamorphose. The day she changed her name. Changed her clothes. Changed her hair, thirteen times, all seven colors. Her first piercing. Her first tattoo.</p><p>But regardless of the transformation, James was still James at her very core, the same dweeb Betty always knew, as recognizable as the morning star.</p><p>James’s studio apartment was, unsurprisingly, an utter mess. It was wonderful. It was in its natural state, as it should be, not beaten into shape by expectations or, worse, rampant hope. James had much better restraint now than she did at seventeen, maybe even better than Betty herself at this point.</p><p>One spin after another, Betty delighted herself in all the touches of James’s soul, glowing in every piece of mismatched furniture, the slanted walls and ashen frames, chaotic blue smeared across coffee-stained newspaper. Twelve years, and James had fallen for the exact shit Betty predicted she would, right down to the books on the chair and songs in her playlist. Everywhere were ghosts, hanging what-ifs, imagined histories, raw cuts and edits coming together like tapes of black and white, more palpable and real than any memory. </p><p>Had Betty woken up inside this very room, she would have assumed she was home.</p><p>There had been some social excuse.</p><p>It came off at the door with the coat, dropped like a sweater.</p><p>James had to only woo her six feet, from the kitchen to the bed, and did she woo her wonderfully, without need of dinner or wine, gala tickets or penthouse views.</p><p>James did it the same way she did the first time, with impish smiles and open thoughts and big ideas. An ache to look at, with a touch of fire, a voice of the deep sea, promises of the future and dreams of the past melted into one. </p><p>She was a masterpiece revisited, sharper, harder, more depth and focus, detailed renderings by an artist returning with more experience and more intent. Far too good for their small town. Far too good to be alone in museums, left on display for strangers. </p><p>James’s arm was firm against the countertop. Betty leaned into it as her guard rail, to keep from falling off in her current intoxication, her increasingly precarious position, unbalanced, unstable, one foot missing her heel, as she let herself to be swept by sensations she hadn’t felt since their first kiss on the High Line. </p><p>It might as well have been a first kiss. Discovering James’s lips again, her mouth, her breath, refusing to part even when breathless, both of them trapped in the same whirlwind of feelings that seized them as teenagers, that burst following years of loud touches and silent pining, so much merciless pining.</p><p>Betty’s head fell back against the cabinet. She closed her eyes, her chest in a heavy rise and fall as James’s hand roamed under her shirt. </p><p>In a single motion, her bra unhooked.</p><p>The straps slid off her shoulders, her cotton tee light and airy against her breasts as James gently pulled the bra out from under.</p><p>Betty had never before felt so freed. Comfortable.</p><p>The window had a view of the bay. While hers overlooked the glimmers of downtown, James’s observed the pier and the sea. Light came in unobstructed from the horizon, hitting the covers and quilt, Betty’s arm and bare navel.</p><p>On James's bed, which she had collapsed onto with reckless glee, the smell exactly as she had expected, she was able to recover from her earlier vertigo. There, she found a better perspective, of the studio, of them, of their actions, each of their beautiful, horrible actions. </p><p>Betty's underwear was exposed beneath unbuttoned jeans, which James slowly slipped to her thighs. Then they were up at her knees, and finally down her ankles. </p><p>Cold, Betty folded her bare legs together. She sat back up. She touched James on the side of her face, her jaw, and brought their lips together. </p><p>They let this one linger. </p><p>James kept her eyes closed. The kiss had stopped, but she didn't break away, simply waiting. Waiting to be slapped. Waiting to be told to go fuck herself. To open her eyes to an empty space in the evening light.</p><p>James waited respectfully through the generic ringtone that Betty never got around to changing.</p><p>They both knew who was calling. </p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>James had showed up at her front porch senior year. They had yelled in the garden of her backyard, heated enough to disregard the peering eyes from inside the house, the explosion of gossip that would inevitably erupt across the hallways of the school. They didn’t care. High school was almost over anyway, and there was no damage that wasn’t already done by Inez and her gleeful whispers of,</p><p><em>Can confirm, James is a total dyke</em>. <em> She’s fucking that August girl from class of ‘04. </em> </p><p>They battled terrible and cruel rumors every day. Gossip wasn’t anything they couldn’t shake off. </p><p>But never in a million years did Betty think that through it all, her reputation would ultimately survive. </p><p>That she would end up surviving alone.</p><p>Nine months of separation had broken James down. She had thrown away her pride, her vanity, coming to Betty with not so much an apology as an open blood wound, begging for mercy, begging for forgiveness. </p><p>Betty forgave her. Betty forgave her a long time ago. </p><p>But it wasn’t just forgiveness James wanted.</p><p>And Betty couldn’t give James what she wanted, only a half-formed compromise that when offered, James could only stare back in disbelief. In devastation. In fury.</p><p>
  <em>Bullshit. </em>
</p><p>James had lost that battle but won the argument. Betty couldn’t blame James for turning her back, for the day she got on the last train, for the day she ran, ran from her bullshit.</p><p>
  <em>Let’s be friends.</em>
</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>So much for friends, Betty thought faintly.</p><p>As if they ever stood a chance, their fates sealed the moment their bodies touched in front of the elevator.</p><p>As children, they ran, wheels rolling on pavement, the blurs of rusted fence and dry grass. They ran <em> fast</em>, faster than all their spells and curses, language struggling again and again to catch up, to catch <em> them</em>. Poets could spend whole lives trying to put them into words, and they’d still hide in between the pauses of a verse.</p><p>Friends were the classmates who came to Betty’s parties. Friends was the word for entertainment, for passing time, escaping boredom, mindless chatter and casual laughs, life invited into a room to fill the emptiness.</p><p>Friends, Betty realized, was all those unreadable gestures during her birthday party, the washed colors, the gaping silence, James trying, desperately trying, cutting off her own edges to fit back into Betty’s life.</p><p><em>Friends </em> was not what they were. </p><p>It had never been what they were.</p><p>Betty’s legs were no longer cold, caressed down to the toe, her skin soft and smooth against James’s hands. The crooks of their elbows and knees fitted perfectly, when James lifted her legs up in one sweep, her bottom weight rising, her back sinking.</p><p>Betty hooked her thumbs under her underwear while James pulled off her own shirt, necklace clinking before settling against her chest. Together they completed each other in symmetry, bare waist down and bare waist up.</p><p>James helped free Betty’s underwear off her ankle. Mindlessly she rolled it over two fingers, watching silently from above, eyes slow, soft, taking the moment to store something for memory.</p><p>She reached down for another kiss, the roll of fabric left by the pillow. The weight of her necklace settled on the space between Betty’s breasts, sinking into her too-warm heart.</p><p>Between the kisses, Betty could hear a decision being made, a renewed determination, a vow, James’s choking desire to make it up to her, to <em> them</em>, her mouth one of vicious swears and vengeful promises.</p><p>James was going to make her regret. </p><p>James was going to make her <em> mourn</em>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>James never unfastened her own belt.</p><p>She didn’t get off on Betty’s kneads and twists, her vulnerability. Tonight was not the night to be getting off, not with Betty back in her bed, back like a daydream.</p><p>Betty was for the slow dance, the embrace, the burn, the aesthetic, the moment, the memory, the temple of secrets and smoke between their mouths. Her body was not something for others to take, to consume, to rub against their desires. </p><p>Betty’s body was for Betty’s pleasure.</p><p>Just as James’s body was for James’s pleasure.</p><p>That, they had figured out since they were teenagers.</p><p>On James’s bed, Betty drifted, watching sunlight on brick walls, listening to the salt breeze.</p><p>James touched her like an old piano, testing each key, learning her tune, carefully listening for where the sounds may have differed, for how she might need to adjust.</p><p>Between them were no words. No laughter.</p><p>Betty had no thoughts at all, unravelling, unlearning twelve years of education and politics. </p><p>She could finally stop performing and just feel. Feel soft. Feel clean. In the ocean, flowing with the tides, waves of pleasure coming like the refrains of a ballad. Beats of rising, followed by steady wanes, then rising yet again, another knot higher.</p><p>Her arms slid above her head, her shoulders and back expansive against James’s sheets. She stretched and arched, breaths deep and even, letting the quilt warm her naked stomach. </p><p>If she were a piano, she was played wonderfully. She was finally played as she was meant to be played, broken keys and all. She repositioned her leg over James’s shoulder and was rewarded with another burst of good pressure from the flat back of James’s tongue.</p><p>James worshipped her deeply. Deeper. She massaged Betty in all the right motions, her thigh, her pelvis, her hips. A hand came around her ass, holding, squeezing, before a thumb pressed firmly between her legs, hitting another note, another key, another breath. </p><p>Betty felt herself peeled open. Wetness dripped down her clit, into the crevices of her opening, between her exposed folds, lower and lower before gathered by James's mouth and poured down on her again.</p><p>No part of her was left untouched. Outside. Inside. In between. Her toes curled. Her hips rocked.</p><p>Betty’s arms shakingly lowered back down.</p><p>Eyes open, Betty leaned up on one elbow. She watched. James watched her back, never pausing in her ministrations. The fucker was grinning, licking her thumb like the icing from a cake, eyes hard with intensity, with challenge.</p><p>James leaned her head against Betty’s raised leg, not breaking eye contact, wearing that smug handsome grin. Her mouth touched Betty’s inner thigh. A look that said, <em> your call, whenever you’re ready</em>.</p><p>This was James driving. James didn’t need instruction. No what. No where. No how. </p><p>Just a when.</p><p>They would go at whatever pace Betty wanted. They could take a detour.</p><p>All Betty had to do was lie down and feel good. Focus on her own body. Focus on the touch. Focus on James, her jaw, her bare neck as she turned to give Betty’s leg another kiss, the dip from her clavicle to her shoulder, from her waist to her jeans. </p><p>Or forget that James existed. Look out the window. Make a grocery list. </p><p>All Betty had to do was enjoy.</p><p>The thumb pressed on Betty harder, teasingly close to her opening, close enough she leaked right onto James’s finger. James felt her muscles squeezing, swallowing, and responded by simply adding more good pressure, reaching her insides from the outside.</p><p>Betty moaned when the pressure lightened, only to come back targeting an even sweeter spot, so convulsively good.</p><p>Gleaming, James placed her full tongue back on her, slow, purposely mismatching impatience with steadfast patience.</p><p>Betty fell back.</p><p>Her vision hazed. James pulled her closer to the edge, dangerously close, before kneading her back into sweet compliancy, letting the road pave before pulling her back to the edge. It had been ages since Betty had ascended this high, and James would pull her higher. James <em> had </em> pulled her higher. </p><p>Only James had pulled her the highest. And she had come back, ready to do it again.</p><p>Betty grabbed the bedsheets. </p><p>Tangled the quilt.</p><p>She felt James's grin against her.</p><p>
  <em>Your call. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Just say so and I’ll take you higher than the fucking moon. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ll take you to the place all of your dumbass boyfriends don’t even know exists, the place they can’t imagine in their wildest dreams.</em>
</p><p>Betty breathed out a curse. She cursed James, cursed her name, her smug grin, the iron grip stopping Betty’s angry kick. She would kill James. She would kill her if she stopped. </p><p>Even if the world went aflame, James better not stop.</p><p>She made the call. </p><p>The grin widened, tinted with malicious promise, James’s hold on her turned absolute.</p><p>Make her regret. Make her mourn. Betty hugged the quilt, curled into herself, as James absolutely delivered on her promise. Wrung her high. Strung her tight. Tighter and tighter until Betty <em> wept</em>, her free foot helplessly searching the brick wall, James pulling her up, off the pillow, off the bed, higher and higher, out of her own skin. </p><p>And with each merciless ascent, another merciless question, demanding her undiluted honesty.</p><p>Was it worth it?</p><p>Were they worth it?</p><p>When you shed me like a worn sweater, when you weaponized my mistake like a fine point sword. </p><p>To cut yourself free.</p><p>Did the freedom taste good?</p><p>Did it taste as good as me, the towers of babel and the walls of ivy, the city highrise, your hard heels on floors of marble.</p><p>When you traded our rose garden for Madison Square.</p><p>And once there, did you find anyone who could fuck you better?</p><p>Fuck you better than <em> me. </em></p><p>Whatever forlorn nostalgia Betty had, obliterated. This was not the James of the past, skating through the neighborhood, throwing open the door every weekend, old autumn blankets and rented VHS tapes, tugging her own glove onto Betty’s hand after Betty lost hers. </p><p>This was James after twelve years of fucking her way through Manhattan, Los Angeles, walking the trail of heartbreak, leaving behind a list of ex-lovers as long as Betty’s own, twelve years of unvoiced history encrypted down her arm. If she had been a prodigy of her art then, she was a master now. </p><p>And Betty was but her latest victim. </p><p>Betty cried.</p><p>She screamed as if dying.</p><p>She <em> was </em> dying.</p><p>This was too high, too insanely high. She’d never return to her body. She’d never want to. </p><p>She had forgotten pleasure wasn’t some delicate, skittish thing, but unflinching and hard. It <em> punched </em> and it <em> punched</em>, mercilessly breaking through all her armors and shields, each blow vibrating down to her toes.   </p><p>And it was pleasure that wrecked her the entire fall down, one burst after another. A fall seemingly without end, until James caught her, swung her into steady arms, and escorted her in the final moments down, both of them plummeting into the deep, deep sea. </p><p>Silent. </p><p>Empty. </p><p>Freed from the storming world above.</p><p>They emerged the same way as they had one lost summer, waddling off the beach with soaked shirts and soaked jeans, laughing in each other’s embrace as they fell into the miserable sand. </p><p>James held her as she did then. Softly.</p><p>Was this worth it?</p><p>Even softer.</p><p>Did you miss me too?</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Betty found her name in the morning sun. Below the shoulder blade, pressed right against the heart. It was at the crook where wings would sprout and expand, and in the light, it looked like one wing did, casting shadow over James’s left arm.</p><p>Betty had been the one to write her name there, marking James in sharpie as thoughtlessly as she did her yearbooks and school t-shirts. On the same whim, James had made it permanent. Laughing under the streetlight, they had left the bar only to drunkenly pull each other to the tattoo parlor on the opposite side.</p><p>Betty had been wild and reckless, but never as brave. She pulled out last minute. She didn’t want to explain it to her parents. She already had enough she didn’t explain.</p><p>James had enough bravery for the both of them, cockily flashing the fake id between her fingers. She had always been fearless, since the day she shamelessly chopped off all her hair, leaving the town to mourn, mourn over the loss of their local beauty, as if beauty didn’t evolve, as if the students wouldn’t evolve, wouldn’t recognize brilliance. </p><p>Wouldn’t one day approach her, wouldn’t have approached her earlier if it weren’t well known she belonged to Betty, long before the day she wore her name.</p><p>James belonged to Betty. Everyone knew that. </p><p>James, who gave the people nothing, gave Betty everything. Gave all her weekends. Would have happily given the ones that summer had Betty wanted them.</p><p>One night an excuse for a summer. </p><p>One summer an excuse for twelve years.</p><p>That town never could contain either of them. </p><p>Betty ran hard, ran fast.</p><p>She kicked off her sneakers, threw away her trophies and crown, ran out of the shade, out of the woods, through the traffic lights and into the busy streets. She ran even faster, ran as fast as she could.</p><p>If James was allowed to change her hair thirteen times, why wasn’t she. Why wasn’t she allowed to grow, to evolve, to <em> be</em>.</p><p>Betty didn’t regret it.</p><p>She had known. </p><p>She had known that when she pulled the trigger and shot that bullet through both their hearts…</p><p>James wouldn’t begrudge her.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>“Are you ever going to give that back? You know it was my grandmother’s.”</p><p>James snorted. “Your grandmother doesn't need it.” She pulled open the kitchen cabinet, the old cardigan sliding up her hip, exposing more of her bare legs. </p><p>Betty broke her gaze when her phone jumped back to life, slipping from her hand and dropping onto the bedcovers. A flood of previously muted messages and missed calls came in, one ping after the next of notifications.</p><p>James said nothing, quietly retrieving what she had been looking for. </p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Spencer [7:00 AM]: hey just checking in</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:00 AM]: you didn’t come back last night</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:00 AM]: everything okay?</p>
</blockquote><p>Betty scrolled up, then back down. Shoulders lowering, she drew in her legs and tapped the message box.</p><p>As she typed out her response, James rinsed their mugs. She closed the tap.</p><p>“Betty.”</p><p>Betty looked up.</p><p>James paused, hands hard over the sink. She opened her mouth before closing it again. </p><p>“Listen, I didn’t come to ruin anything. Just… let me know what you want me to say.”</p><p>The silence hanged. </p><p>Finally, Betty huffed, lips pulled into a smile. "Still can't believe you went through with it," she said, shaking her head. "You're such a dick, James. Never considering anyone but yourself."</p><p>James flinched. Her voice came back neither hard nor soft, just raw.</p><p>"I considered you." </p><p>“Not poor Spencer?” Betty scoffed.</p><p>James glared. “I just got over my distaste for people, Betty. You’re going to have to give me a lot more time before I start caring about the feelings of some noodlehead London boy.”</p><p>“That noodlehead is my best friend,” Betty said, with a ferocity that nearly sent James back. It was the same red ferocity from the playground, something James never thought she’d witnessed from the other side. And it would have crippled James utterly, had there actually been a blow. </p><p>It took a moment for her to realize what Betty was saying.</p><p>Betty returned to typing on her phone. “We used to work at the same company. Spencer is my housemate.”</p><p>Betty regretted nothing. James knew her. James <em> knew </em> who she was, weaknesses and all. Lonely might be one of them, but dumbass certainly wasn’t, not the kind James had. </p><p>Watching James squirm had been kind of fun though.</p><p>James never fully recovered. Her entire being appeared to have dropped, crumpled into a piece of a paper, a mess of wrecked despair and joyful misery.</p><p>“You sadist.”</p><p>“Get that breakfast ready, and you might get her."</p><p>James didn’t mishear. </p><p>Betty smirked. James was way too smug if she thought she was the only one who had gotten smarter, harder. As if Betty had forgotten how to fuck James, the way James liked to be fucked.</p><p>The refrigerator door nearly broke.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Spencer [1:05 PM]: hey o! got the delivery</p>
  <p>Spencer [1:06 PM]: hoping lunch’s going well</p>
  <p>Spencer [1:06 PM]: let me know if you need your ♘ </p>
  <p>Spencer [4:50 PM]: are you coming home for dinner?</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:20 PM]: WHATS GOING ON B</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:20 PM]: we want to hear only sins not tragedies 🔥🔥🔥</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:20 PM]: (ordered you pad thai just in case)</p>
  <p>Spencer [8:54 PM]: sm and the others found her insta, everyone’s stalking real hard</p>
  <p>Spencer [8:59 PM]: Damn your ex one hell of a snack. sm says if you going for the pass, she going for the steal. she coming in faster than you can say sabotage 🐍🐍🐍</p>
  <p>Spencer [11:58 PM]: either you’re fucked or fucking, give us a sign babe</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:00 AM]: hey just checking in</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:00 AM]: you didn’t come back last night</p>
  <p>Spencer [7:00 AM]: everything okay?</p>
  <p>Betty [8:40 AM]: omg y’all need to calm down. I’m good, having breakfast with James</p>
  <p>Betty [8:43 AM]: Do you mind feeding our daughters while I’m away? 😇</p>
  <p>Spencer [8:45 AM]: asdfghk</p>
  <p>Spencer [8:48 AM]: You enjoy your breakfast Betty.</p>
</blockquote>
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